Betfair’s £80m Payout Error: Who Benefitted?

The world’s largest betting exchange, Betfair, has admitted to making a £80m payout mistake during the years 2011-2013.  Punters saw none of it, however.

The company admitted on Sunday that they had paid out investors in this amount in violation of accounting rules.

Betfair essentially paid out more in dividends and share buybacks than it was legally permitted to.

Betfair announced its first dividend as a public company in June 2011, partly to reassure investors who had seen the company’s shares halve since its flotation six months earlier, the Financial Times reported.

Said payments did not conform with a rule change on how a company’s realised profits and distributable reserves are defined, the Financial Times additionally noted.

A Betfair spokesman called the mistake a “minor technical point arising from 2010”, which has “no impact on shareholders”.

Shares in Betfair remain 20 percent under the IPO price.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com